Myth, Politics, and Incorporation: The Gilded Age Origins of the 'O.K. Corral 'Narrative

This thesis examines the mythology of the 'O.K. Corral' as a persistent narrative structure rather than a succession of competing interpretations. It argues that the dominant 'heroic' and so- called revisionist representations of the event are structurally continuous, both organized around the same moral dichotomy of Law versus Outlawry. By treating mythology itself as an object of analysis, the thesis demonstrates that this moral framework has remained remarkably stable across twentieth- and twenty-first-century biographies, films, and television portrayals. The thesis further argues that this enduring moral structure originated in the immediate political context of the Gilded Age. Through historical reconstruction, it situates the event within a wider landscape of corporate expansion, factional rivalry, and fee-based governance in the Arizona Territory, showing how materially motivated conflicts were subsequently obscured by moral framing. Finally, the thesis traces the emergence of the 'O.K. Corral' mythology to contemporary partisan discourse during and immediately after the preliminary hearing. Analysis of Republican- and Democratic-aligned newspapers and participant statements demonstrates that political ideology functioned as an operational narrative vocabulary through which economic competition was rendered morally legible. This mechanism produced a mythological structure that persists because it translates material conflict into moral judgment, allowing the narrative to be repeatedly redeployed.